106 comments:

Apologies for giving a movie snob type answer but it's definitely Lilya 4-Ever. Not only did I cry buckets when I saw the movie, but at random times during the next several months, I'd think of the movie and just burst into tears.

It's a tie between Brief Encounter and Meet Me in St. Louis (when Judy starts singing 'Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas') A movie that leaves me with a profound feeling of sadness (but usually without the tears) is The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance.

I find that the more I watch All About My Mother, the sadder I find it. At this stage, the tears start to well up the moment the Pathé logo appears. I have the most overworked nasolacrimal ducts of anybody I've ever met - I cried at the SATC movie, much to the amusement of my sister. I've been known to cry at some dreadful rubbish, I even shed a tear at I Am Legend.

The worst movie I have ever cried at was Bobby. We went to see it as a family and it was one of the worst cinema experiences I've ever had. I started crying about ten minutes in and the tears literally did not let up for the whole duration of the film. I was still crying as we left the cinema, still crying while waiting on the street for my dad to get the car, crying all the (30 minute) drive home, still crying at home. It was ridiculous - I didn't even like the film.

Artificial Intelligence. Starts building when the kid is frozen staring at the Blue Fairy. Builds up when they "revive" his Mummy. Collapse into a pile of salty tears when he finally lies down to die. I'm sniffing 'em back just typing this...

"The Color Purple" - still does it after the 20th viewing"Dancer in the Dark" - My poor sister had to pick me up in the parking lot."A Mighty Heart" - Made me SOB! Private grief has never rung so true."The Bridges of Madison Country" - the hand on the car door handle. Ugh!"Brokeback Mountain" - Of course"Watership Down" - Should re-title it Waterworks DownBut the one movie I sobbed publicly over was "In America". It just really hit home.

Schindler's List - only saw it once in the theater. The entire audience was sobbing.

The Others - the reveal gets me every time (the first time I saw it I cried on and off for a week afterwards.)

The Joy Luck Club (my mom said, this isn't a tearjerker, is it?)

Moulin Rouge - Ewan's cry is so heart-wrenching that I generally have to turn the movie off beforehand.

Antonia's Line - *Spoiler* the scene where the man holds the woman he has loved for years and never spoken to (a woman who used to howl at the moon, and now he is howling in grief) gets me teary-eyed just thinking about it.

"Dancer in the Dark" and "Grave of the Fireflies", a double feature to make anyone want to die. I always get a little teared up by the final scene of "In the Mood for Love" too. They're all so sublime.

I've never actually cried at a movie (I have sobbed profusely over a couple of books, A Walk to Remember and Gone With the Wind, but not their respective movies) but the closest I ever got was with The Color Purple (the reunion scene), Atonement (the ending) and The Christmas Shoes (this awful TV movie that's absolutely shameless but still affecting). There was also this one day when I was feeling down in the dumps and the last 20 minutes of It's a Wonderful Life nearly had me balling like a baby. I've watched it before and after and it hasn't affected me that way either time.

Well let's see. The first ten minutes of WALL-E are perfect, but also elicit tears. For some reason, the scene from that film that really did it for me after the first viewing was where the "liberated" woman gazes out as WALL-E and EVE dance outside and she goes, "Wow! Look at all the stars!" Something about how much that communicated about the state that humans are at on this ship really worked for me.

But what else? Dancer in the Dark is an obvious pick. It all starts about the time Björk sobs while singing "Favorite Things" and just about continues on until the absolutely painful-to-watch finale.

Angelina Jolie's breakdown in A Mighty Heart and final dinner elicited a tear or two.

La Vie en Rose got the waterworks going at the end with its intercutting of old-and-haggard Edith alone in bed and one of her performances. The movie wasn't terribly great (needlessly confusing!), but Cotillard was.

Terms of Endearment. Call me dense, but I see the "Give my daughter the shot!" scene as more funny than sad. I feel like it's meant to be played for laughs. Bittersweet laughs, but laughs. I mean... Shirley MacLaine's going NUTS in that waiting room, so much so that I just thought it was a lightly comedic moment that highlighted how much she loved her daughter.

But yeah - from the point where Debra Winger tells her sons that she knows they love her until the end... Unstoppable waterworks. That's the only funeral/memorial service scene in film that's actually worked, and I don't know why. It's a very simple sequence, but something about it - maybe just feeling like you knew these characters - made it work.

Forest Gump, Step Mom (I can just watch that last scene by itself and be a wreck), The Wizard of Oz, The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, Casablanca, and A.I. (so glad someone mentioned this one this is probably the biggest tear jearker of all).

Just out of curiosity, has anyone ever cried at a movie just because it's simply so good? For example, I sobbed when I first saw The Apartment.

I'm so fickle about when I cry at movies. It all depends what mood I'm in I guess. Some things will make me cry some days, others other days. I do well up a lot in the theater. I welled up at WALL*E in a few spots. And yeah I also welled up at Sex and the City during "I know I screwed it up, but I will always love you." Semi-embarrassing. Brokeback, if I watch the whole thing through, will certainly do it.

One movie I never really cry at is Dancer in the Dark. I just don't cry. I still experience everything, and LOVE it, but I find that I sort of bypass the crying and just go into this über-high from the sheer genius of it all. It makes want to sing and dance, not cry. Maybe that's weird...

For fucking years, I'd been told how "Terms of Endearment" is a can't-miss tearjerker movie and made EVERYONE cry. So I finally sat down to watch it two summers ago with my arms folded and an attitude of "Impress Me. Make me cry."

By the last ten minutes, I was in pieces.

Only other movies in recent years to make me come close are "Finding Nemo" and "House of Sand and Fog."

Sobbed throughout the entirety of LotR:Return of the King (and what a good, satisfactory sob it was). Couldn't leave the theatre right away after Hotel Rwanda b/c I couldn't stop the tears. Dancer in the Dark. For sure.

But I think I'll always cry at the end of Home Alone. It's Christmas morning. He's alone. But then Catherine O'Hara shows up and it's just about perfect (and she's SO great in that movie). BUT THEN the whole family barrels through the front door AND THAT MUSIC. Ugh. Hate to admit that Chris Columbus was behind it, but that's great stuff. Always produces tears.

Though, when it comes to movies, it really doesn't take much for me to cry (and I LOVE crying at movies...).

I cannot take Dark Victory seriously. I've cried plenty times at Now Voyager but that film just makes me laugh so hard. The funniest moment is when Bette sees the doctor's notes by accident. "What does...prognosis mean?" Beat. "What does...negative mean?" Oh, man.

YES about Stepmom. That's one of those films which I hate for manipulating my emotions, but love all the same (see: The Notebook).

I can't believe I forget the Lord of the Rings trilogy. Like Matt, I bawled for the whole of the third film, but each one made me cry. The last half hour or so of The Fellowship is nearly unwatchable for me: Frodo attempting to set off on his own, Sam drowning, Merry and Pippin charging at th Urk-Hai, the lack of Gandalf, Boromir's death and Aragorn's farewell to him...*tears up*

A scene which always gets me weeping is the 'Everything Old Is New Again' scene in All That Jazz. The thought of Ann Reinking and Joe's daughter practising the dance, the mixture of pride, amusement and regret on Joe's face...argh.

Hard to believe the number of posts gets into the 60s and there is only one other mention of "Field of Dreams". Maybe not a lot of this crowd has father issues...

I'll add "Saving Private Ryan" and "Memphis Belle" to those who mentioned "The Best Years of Our Lives", I think because I tend to identify with the characters as a (non-combat) disabled veteran myself.

Still, my true by-the-bucketload tearfests are reserved for books. The night I finished Charlotte's Web the first time I cried all night. Pissed my dad off something fierce.

Usually I cry by the musical score. Braveheart, Glory, The Phantom of the Opera. etc.

Movies that made me cry recently: The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (when Aragorn and Arwen finally see each other)**************SPOILERS**************Wall-E - when Wall-E hypothetically diesHotel RwandaReign Over MeCrash - you think he killed the girlBrokeback MountainCrouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, Black Hawk DownCast AwayHarry Potter and the Goblet Fire - the reaction of Cedric's father when he Cedric is dead A.I. Artificial Intelligence (Has a hair. She can see her boy one last timeThe Lion King - ENTIRE opening scene. Best film by Disney EVER.The PianistA Mighty Heart - do I even have to explain?Pan's LabyrinthMemoirs of a GeishaThe Color PurpleBobbyMillion Dollar BabyChildren of Men - when the baby is crying and TIME stops. Even the bloodshed.I Am Legend - When Will Smith's character has to kill his dog

The most out-of-control, I-want-to-stop-crying-but-I-just-can't movie was Dancer in the Dark. I remember going to the bathroom afterwards and all women in there had swollen red eyes and everyone was still sobbing.

And the airport scenes in Love, Actually get me everytime. Even seeing real people reuniting at airports makes me teary-eyed because of that movie.

And I cried during Lilo&Stitch (that long forgotten Disney movie). As far as I remember (I was crying really hard) Lilo had some fight with her big sister but then realised she loved her. Maybe it was because I just had had a huge argument with my sister that ended with the same realization... Anyway, the little kid sitting next to me actually asked his mother to hand me a tissue which only made me cry harder.

Gallipoli (1981), dir. Peter WeirAbout the massacre of Australian troops in WWI in the battle of Gallipoli in Turkey. They just used colonial troops as cannon fodder, The Australians are still mad about this one. And I think you can guess what happens to all the characters you care about in the movie. So beautiful, so idealistic, so brave, so dead.

omg....i can be such a girl. it's a wonderful life....starting w the drug store scene in which the druggist starts beating up george..."welcome home mr. bailey"....the telephone scene...i could go on & on.

lots of ww2 movies....the last scene w deborah kerr & donna reed in "from here to eternity"; & "the best years of our lives" when myrna knows her husband is home and they hug in the hall.

2 fantastic tv movies...."Love is never silent" - mare winningham's big scene. and toward the end of "The dollmaker" in which jane fonda let's her husband have it.

the scene w meryl streep and ed harris in "The Hours"....that's what friends do.

sorry, just thought of 2 more. "ordinary people" - mary tyler moore and timothy hutton in that very awkward scene in which she attempts to go talk w him in the back yard - it's heartbreaking. they just can't click. plus - cloris leachman in that last scene in "The last picture show"

Films with musical scores that I can't even hear the music to or else I tear up:-Terms of Endearment-E.T.-Little Women (Winona version)-Brokeback Mountain-Gone with the Wind

Other Tear Jerkers:-Dumbo-Phenomenon-Out of Africa (funeral, lions on grave)-Love Actually ("All You Need is Love" surprise at wedding)-The Notebook -Hope Floats-Forrest Gump -In the Gloaming-Running on Empty-Stealing Home (obscure, yes, but great)-Mr. Holland's Opus (him signing "Beautiful Boy" to his son is classic)

I always cry at Thelma & Louise. Even if I walk in and it's on the TV, if it's at the end I'll start bawling. Also, Dancer in the Dark, that moment in Requiem for a Dream where Sara's friends are sitting at the bus stop gets me every time too. Also, The Elephant Man. I've cried plenty of times at movies that I've never rewatched so I can't say whether I'd cry again at them (most recently would be Bridge to Terabithia). I well up plenty of times though. Oddest was, perhaps, the end of Monster.

I must say, the thing that gets me crying more than anything isn't just something sad happening, but the grieving by other people. Like, I dont know what it's like to be convicted of a crime i didn't commit, but when I see Catherine Denueve or Siobhan Hogan in the final scenes of Dancer in the Dark I lose it.

oh the reservoir dogs blood soaked moment between tim roth and harvey keitel gets to me. and it's a good reminder that Tarantino was never only about his hipsterism ---which all the imitators missed. There's always hardcore character and emotion in the movies too. Well, Death Proof excepted.

I'd have to say that Running on empty made me bawl, not a silent tear down the cheek, but heaving and downturned mouth sobbing, it hit hard . . . can never listen to "Fire and Rain" by James Taylor without thinking of River Phoenix now